by Cube Kid
In memory of Lola Salines (1986-2015),
founder of 404 éditions and editor of this series,
who lost her life in the November 2015 attacks on Paris.
Thank you for believing in me.
- Cube Kid
I really ended that last entry on a cliff-hanger.
I was basically like, “ZOMG! I heard a noise coming from my monster box! What am I going to do?!” and then nothing.
The end.
Boom
Just like that.
Sorry.
There was a pretty good reason, though. After I heard that sound, I dropped my diary and dropped my quill . . . Wait. First, let me show you the blueprints of my house.
I made this illustration so you’ll have a better idea of what happened last night. I’m such a nice villager, huh? Let’s zoom in on my bedroom.
Now, I was sitting on my bed last night, and for the first time, I heard some kind of noise coming from the direction of the box. It wasn’t too loud.
It was like a little squeaking sound. At first, I just wanted the noise to go away. Then I realized . . . it wouldn’t go away. Whatever it was, that mob was going to stay in that little room forever and ever.
Or at least until someone let it out. I decided that someone should be Steve. It was time to tell him about . . .
my plan of getting
us students
some real mobs.
I ran over to his house, but he didn’t want to talk.
“I can’t say anything more about those trees,” he said. “Mayor’s orders.”
“I’m not here for that,” I said. “Will you please come look at something? It’s really—”
“Not tonight,” he replied. “I’m starving. Not only do I have a growling stomach, but also my hunger bar is low. I’m still trying to accept this hunger bar, floating in the bottom of my vision as if it were part of a HUD in a computer game, as reality.”
“You mean people on Earth don’t have hunger bars?”
“No, Runt. People on Earth don’t have hunger bars. They don’t have anything floating in their vision. Speaking of hunger bars . . . would you like to join me for dinner?”
I glanced at the mushroom stew on his table.
“Niiuuuuuuu.”
“Really? You sure?”
“NNNNNooooo. Nonono.”
I ran out of Steve’s house before I grew more nauseated. I didn’t even say good-bye.
So,
Steve wouldn’t be any help.
Mike was busy at his castle-house, working on some new lava trap he called “The Burninator.” His face was covered in redstone dust.
Stump was baking with his parents. His face was covered with the various ingredients required to craft a cake. How that had happened, I don’t know, and I didn’t ask.
I could’ve begged Max for help, maybe, but . . . no. Just no. Someone had to open that room, all right, and
I guess that someone was going
to be me.
Well, I could have asked my dad for help, but what kind of warrior would do that?
No, I was responsible for this. I had to deal with it on my own.
I’m brave, I told myself. Dealing with an actual mob all by myself? No problem.
It’s my first quest.
But how could I talk it into cooperating? “O, hai, mob. Thanks for spawning. Can you please just be a good mob and let a bunch of villager kids beat on you with wooden swords like a training dummy? It’s a good job. It pays a lot. We’ll even give you healing potions to heal up all the damage so we can beat on you again.”
Sigh.
Scratch that: asking nicely wouldn’t work. I’d have to scare the mob into helping out.
I went back to my house, back to my bedroom, and made my best warrior face. When that mob finally saw me, I wanted it to know that I meant business.
ALL BUSINESS. ALL THE TIME.
Now, someone looking at the above picture might think I was totally scared.
Nah.
My eyebrows were like that to help block any sunlight that might have come through the window and blinded me—an advanced warrior technique, see?
The sweat on my brow? I was just sweating in advance, simply forcing my body to cool itself for the possible heated battle ahead. My face was pale because it was trying to blend in with the cobblestone wall behind me. That’s ninja stuff right there. As for my scrunched-up mouth, um . . . I was about to make a really scary battle cry. No scared villager here.
I walked toward the wall of my room, wielding my pickaxe.
I didn’t want to mine from the outside because I didn’t want anyone to see what I was up to. If anyone saw me swinging away at my own house, they’d certainly watch, and then they’d see whatever mob was in there, and there’d be a new “incident.”
The funny thing was . . . my hands were shaking a lot.
I began swinging at the cobblestone wall.
Each swing seemed to take forever.
My heart was pounding in my chest. That was because I was so . . . excited? Yes, excited.
What kind of mob will it be? I wondered. By the sound of it, I thought it might have been a baby ghast. Still, I’d never seen a ghast before, only read about them. As far as I knew, they could only be found in the Nether. Also, there was no such thing as a baby ghast, and a normal ghast wouldn’t fit in a room like that.
Hmm. It could have been a spider. It didn’t sound like any spider I’d ever heard, though.
Then I thought, maybe it’s a CAVE spider? Wait, Mike was saying something about cave spiders. Something about how, upon seeing one, it’s a good idea to run away, screaming like an enderman in an ocean biome. Something about how cave spiders are about as dangerous as a charged creeper. And how you should have a bucket of milk with you if you’re crazy enough to face one, since milk cures poison . . . and cave spiders are
super . . .
Super . . .
Poisonous.
I immediately stopped swinging my pickaxe. Again—not that I was afraid. Come on, who’s afraid of a little poison? Poison that makes your health bar tick all the way down until you have only half a heart left and you’re so low that even a chicken could finish you off and the whole time you’re writhing in pain, shivering? Who’s afraid of that? Not me.
I was just thirsty. For some reason, I had a huge craving for milk right about then. I went and got a bucketful.
Actually, I came back with two buckets of milk. I set one down next to me on the bedroom floor. I held the second bucket in my other hand. My reasoning was: after I was done mining away at the wall of my bedroom to get to the box, I could pause real quick and drink some milk if I was still thirsty.
I began mining again.
While I mined, I held the milk bucket up close to my lips—how could anyone not want a big glug at a time like that?!
Soon, the first block was mined. I took out my sword, but the squeaking had already stopped. No sounds came from within the box.
Whatever it was, it was waiting.
Hefting the pickaxe again,
I mined away the block below
and switched back to my sword.
Still nothing.
Maybe even a zombie cow.
A zombie cow would have been really cool.
Sadly, there was no zombie cow in there.
It was . . .
. . .
A slime!
A baby slime
The smallest slime I’d ever seen. It squeaked again when it saw me. How sad!
Here I was, hoping it’d at least be a zombie, a skeleton, something we could practice on. I thought about smashing the slime with my pickaxe. That way, I wouldn’t get into trouble for bringing a mob into the village, my parents wouldn’t freak out, no old men would scream and get the mayor, and it’d be like nothing had ever happened. No one would know.
I could just cut my losses
right then and there. Boom.
The end of Project Mob Spawn.
Plus, I’d get a slimeball as a bonus.
I raised my pickaxe, but something stopped me. There was something weird about this slime. It wasn’t hostile. It didn’t try leaping at me. It just sat there, quivering, occasionally squeaking.
Considering that, how could I just end this creature’s life?
And hey, wasn’t capturing a real mob for combat class the whole reason for this in the first place?! Sure, it wasn’t a zombie, but maybe this little slime had a use. We could study it, you know?
Long story short, I have a pet now.
I fed it a piece of bread, which it devoured in less than a second, and it became my friend immediately. (Well, technically, it let out a huge belch and then became my friend, but yeah.)
Actually, maybe I should refer to it as my “test subject.” That sounds way cooler than “pet,” right? My bedroom could become a laboratory. Stump could be my assistant, and we could conduct many secret experiments on this poor mob.
Can it laugh? Does it sleep? Will it cry if we make scary faces at it? Will it begin writing its own diary titled Diary of a Heroic Baby Slime?
No! No! Niuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! My pet slime won’t be attending slime school, thank you very much. He’s gonna grow up to be polite and sophisticated and an all-around good citizen. Minecraftia’s first gentleman slime.
This will be him.
By the way, I named my pet slime Jello.
I heard Steve talking about Jell-O the other day. Apparently, it’s an Earth food that resembles slime. I figured it’d be a good name.
Of course, I have to tell Steve about Jello at some point. I know that. Until then, I emptied out my double chest, and it now serves as Jello’s, uh, bed, or house, or cage, or whatever. Jello calmed down a few minutes after I picked it up. Now it doesn’t even mind staying in the chest with the lid closed.
Sit! Stand! Roll over! Good boy!
Now, split into a bunch of smaller slimes!
Wait. Baby slimes can’t do that, can they?
So I have a pet baby slime, and there are more and more trees. Yay.
Fascinating. Yes, everyone’s still freaking out and talking about them nonstop.
Steve still won’t tell me what’s going on.
Why are the trees so important?!
Why do they matter so much?!
If anything, that forest is just a huge source of wood that’s steadily moving closer to our village.
What’s so bad about that?!
I mean, the lumberjacks in our village should rejoice. They don’t even have to move to get their lumber anymore! They can just sit around all day eating pumpkin pie until the trees get close enough for them to chop.
It’s like
the easiest profession
ever now!
In other news, a lot of people were talking at school today. Even though there’s no official ranking of the students—as far as we know, anyway—everyone has a general idea of the top ten students because we’re constantly peeking at other students’ record books and sharing the information. Ask any student and they’ll tell you:
Max, obviously.
Yours truly.
???
Pebble (the guy Max warned me about).
Donkey (Pebble’s friend).
Sap (another member of Pebble’s crew).
Stump (my BFF!).
Porcupine (haven’t seen him much).
Sarabella (another member of my crew).
Twinkle (I don’t know anything about him—he’s really good at crafting, supposedly).
Now, here’s where the mystery begins. For the past week or so, everyone had assumed Pebble was the third-highest-level student. However, someone overheard a few teachers talking after school, and one of the teachers said Pebble was ranked fourth, not third. But no other student has scores better than Pebble, Max, and myself. It’s weird. Of course, there are many students out there who are very secretive about their scores and never give anyone the chance to peek at their record book.
I really wonder who it is? Razberry?
Nah. According to Max, he’s near the bottom.
So who is this mystery guy with scores nearly as high as my own? And why have I never noticed him before?
As for Jello, he’s sick. I showed my secret pet to Stump, who gave him a slice of cake. Jello devoured it instantly, as he does with bread, then the poor slime turned bright green and became even slimier for about an hour.
We’ve already learned something, then:
Slimes can’t handle too much sugar.
Sticking to bread for now.
Today in school, the teachers handed out an official textbook. It’s a new book, apparently, called the Golden Rules Handbook. The inside cover says:
Two diamond swords strapped across his back? A bit much. Yes, that’s the guy who almost killed a zombie once. With a stick.
His handbook contains, without a doubt, some of the noobiest information imaginable. Still, it’s required reading for all students. The elders figured it might have some stuff we missed. Here are a few of the handbook’s more groan-inducing pearls of wisdom. (Each “Golden Rule” comes with a mini fairy tale to teach us students a “valuable lesson.”)
Golden Rule #1
Always build a door for your house.
Once upon a time, a noob named Lenny never liked doors.
They got in his way.
They slowed him down.
He had to open them and close them.
Without a door for his dirt house, Lenny was free to run inside and outside without any delay.
Then one night, Lenny couldn’t understand why so many zombies were approaching his house with their arms outstretched.
THE ZOMBIES AREN’T COMING IN FOR TEA, LENNY. OMG, THE ZOMBIES AREN’T COMING IN FOR TEA.
Seriously?
Who doesn’t build doors?
It’s interesting to note that this Lenny guy looks exactly like Steve. If you ask me, this is Urf’s way of getting back at Steve for taking Urf’s place as combat teacher.
Golden Rule #3
Manage your inventory at all times.
There was once a fierce and powerful warrior named AxeNoob. Despite his name, he was not a noob but the greatest warrior in all the land. No one could chop like him. No one. But as he ventured through the land, he chopped and swung at every bush and flower he could. Eventually, his inventory, clogged with flowers, seeds, and other random items, drove this fearsome warrior insane.
The greatest warrior Minecraftia had ever known—able to cut a spider in half with a single chop—and yet, it was the flowers that got h
im.
Looks like Urf tried to disguise Steve in this one. Anyway, I actually agree with the advice given. I used to gather seeds for my family, remember? Still do sometimes. After five hours of that, managing your inventory is like playing some kind of puzzle game.
Golden Rule #5
Don’t make a mushroom farm without recessed torches in the ceiling.
In a land far, far away, a noob named JonBo checked on his mushroom farm. When he opened the door, he saw not only red mushrooms growing on the floor, but also bright red glowing lights in the darkness beyond. The noob assumed those were special, glow-in-the-dark mushrooms. Overjoyed, he stepped into his mushroom farm to begin harvesting.
Dude, Minecraftia doesn’t HAVE glow-in-the-dark mushrooms. Those are REDSTONE ORE VEINS, noob!!
Golden Rule #17
Don’t mine stone with your bare hands.
Long, long ago, there was a noob named Steven.
He harvested wood with his bare hands because he thought using tools was a waste of resources.
Why reduce tool durability? Why bother crafting axes at all? Steven’s hands had no durability, as far as he knew. Even if it took him longer to chop down trees this way, he could save materials. He could punch and punch all day and never waste any crafting tools. Steven was the kind of guy who, after loaning his best friend a wooden sword six months earlier, would ask for exactly one stick and two oak planks to be returned.
